“I Write Stories Using Light”: Asmae El Moudir Discusses ‘The Mother of All Lies’

Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir (2020’s The Postcard) grew up in a world in which images were forbidden. She had no childhood photos (save for one that she doubted was even her) and only learned as an adult of the shocking military crackdown that occurred in her neighborhood in 1981; not only were the “bread riots” absent from any school lessons, but only a single photograph managed to make it past government censors and into her nation's historical archive. So when her parents decided to finally move from her childhood home, the director-writer-producer seized the opportunity to both help out and potentially solve the mystery behind these unexplained erasures. Returning to Casablanca, she did what any dogged camera-carrying investigator would do, which is to try to get some answers to her burning lifelong questions from relatives, friends, and neighbors. But she also went one step further and did what only the innovative filmmaker daughter of a distinguished local mason could possibly do—she convinced her dad to rebuild their house and district, in miniature, complete with figurines of local residents. This doll-sized neighborhood became a lovingly crafted film set El Moudir could then use as a vessel to gently transport even the most recalcitrant and reluctant to a past too traumatic to exist. To learn more about the resulting nonfiction drama, The Mother of All Lies, shortlisted for an Oscar as Morocco’s official entry, Documentary reached out to the critically acclaimed filmmaker, who was bestowed Best Director at both Cannes’s Un Certain Regard and the 2023 IDA Documentary Awards. The Mother of All Lies next screens the Spotlight section at Sundance. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.